The Far From The Madding Crowd star on mistakes past, cultivating her personal style, and the one scene she tried to get pulled from her latest period piece.

In Far From The Madding Crowd Carey Mulligan embodies a literary heroine who feels distinctly feminist. The film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's iconic novel, out May 1, follows Bathsheba Everdene, a woman who takes control of her own fate and refuses to settle down for the sake of settling down. Mulligan gives the character a sense of spirited liberation even as several love stories unfold. It's somewhat familiar territory for the actress, who rose to acclaim in An Education and has since appeared in The Great Gatsby and Never Let Me Go. She tends to gravitate toward strong, complicated characters and stories that embrace big ideas. The actress called us from London to discuss her love for books, Prada sneakers, and women who learn from their mistakes.

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You've done so many literary adaptations. What is it that attracts you to those films?

Yeah, I did a lot when I was starting out. I love reading, and there are books I fall in love with. I think I've gotten to work on the ones I've loved. It's often where the great stories are. There's great new writing and I'm excited about doing new writing in the future, but often the great, great classics are really worthy of retelling. To have the ability to work on a couple of them, like Madding or The Great Gatsby, it's a really great experience. You have a great script, a great cast, and a great director, but you also have this amazing, incredibly rich source material to go back to, which is a brilliant aid when you're playing a character. So I do really enjoy it.

When you have a story like this one, how much do you go back to the original book as you're filming?

The book became our Bible onset. We would carry it everywhere with us. It was a daily conversation for a number of reasons. Firstly, you want to please the people who are fans of the book—and that includes us as filmmakers and as actors. And the original dialogue in Madding Crowd is so extraordinary that we wanted to put that in as much as possible. Also, the detail. For one scene you see onscreen, there's probably a 20-page part of the book dedicated to that one moment. So you're never lost for ideas on how to do something because you've just got a wealth of notion about what your character is doing and how they're feeling and how they're moving. Even in Madding Crowd it describes how her face blushes as she talks. That's just so helpful.

Alex Bailey

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What did you like about Bathsheba?

I liked a lot of things about her. First of all, you're struck when you read the book by how modern she is. For a woman written in Victorian Britain she's an incredibly modern character and she doesn't feel like she belongs in that time at all. That was the appeal, that she didn't feel like a buttoned-up Austen character. She was a free spirit and impetuous and willful and determined. And I liked that she's a flawed character as well—that she makes mistakes and she's not perfect. She's stubborn and vain, and you can see how she makes all those classic mistakes you make as a girl growing up.

Did you relate to that idea of making mistakes when you're young?

Yeah! I think most people can relate to it. The naïve, silly things you do when you're growing up , when you like the bad boys and you say the wrong things. All of that stuff is pretty relatable.

Her relationship with Sergeant Troy is so classic.

And you can see it a mile off. Exactly. The strongest quality she has is being able to rise up after making those mistakes and carry on. The test is really how you cope with the disasters that you fall into and how you deal with them after. That's one of her really good qualities: She's able to brush herself off and carry on.

I loved the scene in the film in which your character sings. Do you have any actual plans to pursue music?

That is me singing. I love that scene because I think it's a really interesting moment between those three characters. We were really lucky to work with some great music people on the film to find that great folk song. That's a really obscure British folk song. But, in terms of music, I don't have any designs to do anything musical. It's been coincidental that I've done music in a couple of films, but it's been a byproduct of the work rather than something intentional. And, in fact, I tried to get that scene taken out of the film before we shot it. But it's great to be able to sing in films—even if it's not something I do on my own.

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Is there a book you're still hoping to do an adaptation of in the future?

It's funny because so many of the ones I love have been done so successfully. Jane Eyre was one of my favorite books. But I remember seeing Charlotte Gainsbourg's version and loving that, and then Mia [Wasikowska]'s version, which is brilliant with Michael Fassbender. So that's sort of untouchable now in a way. There's been great performances already immortalized. So there's no kind of great novel out there that I'm looking to be involved in.

Alex Bailey

Are you reading anything right now?

I'm reading a book called The Bottom Billion. It's a book about why poor countries are failing and social economic problems. It's fairly serious. I work for a charity in England called War Child who look after children in conflict. Rob Williams, who is the CEO of the charity, gave this to me and it's just fascinating.

Everyone's been talking about your red carpet looks for this film. When you came into the spotlight with An Education, did you have to work to develop your style?

I never really gave it an enormous amount of thought. I was lucky enough to work with a stylist early on when I was doing press stuff who made me feel comfortable and gave me great things to wear to do press in, which gives you confidence. You feel that you're wearing nice, interesting things and that's all very good. But in terms of my style, I don't think there was a moment where I ever really thought about it in that kind of way. I've always felt very lucky to wear lovely clothes made by great designers. I have an appreciation of the art of fashion in a way I didn't before I was in this industry. That's been really interesting to watch and see designers making clothes. The idea of making it from a sketch and from nothing has been really great to get to see.

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What does it feel like the first time a big designer wants to dress you?

The first people who ever dressed me were Prada. They came around about the time An Education came out. It felt lovely. It felt like a great support. They've always been supportive. They made my wedding dress. They're like family to me, largely because they've always been in support of my career and me. And they're just lovely people. I know everyone who works there and I think that's a really nice collaboration. I get to work with friends.

When you have a day to yourself, what do you typically wear?

I'll tell you what I'm wearing right now. This is sort of a day off. I'm wearing Steven Alan trousers that are baggy and comfortable. I'm wearing an Elizabeth and James shirt. It's kind of hot now in the U.K. And I've got these Prada sneakers that I wear every day and I've worn into the ground. They're like Prada's version of Converse that they gave me. I love them so much.

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